AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But this deal hadn’t fallen through yet. Emissary Serihk may have declared himself an adversary, but he certainly hadn’t won anything yet.
Oliver shook himself and then stood and headed back to the shower. He was Oliver Turner. He was the youngest—and soon to be once again favorite—son of the magnificently powerful Turner family dynasty. A trumped-up bureaucratic diplomat wasn’t going to get in his way.
Just before he’d stepped into the bathroom, hands already on his shirt to pull it off, he heard a knock on the door. He paused. It was the middle of the night. Anything urgent and that knock would have been more like a bang. Another soft knock sounded.
“Turner, are you awake?”
Oliver’s heart jumped into his throat at the deep rumble of Mal’ik’s voice through the door. He quickly stuffed it back down into his chest cavity. Captain Mal’ik was not here for a late-night tryst. For one, he didn’t seem like to type to make booty calls, and for two, no one was going to want to jump back into bed with Oliver after his abysmal behavior last night, flying out of bed like a bat out of hell.
“Yes,” Oliver called back. He padded to the door and pulled it open. Mal’ik stood there looking grim-faced, his heavy brows pinched, the unblemished side of his lips downturned, and the other pulling on his scars. “What’s wrong?”
“You were looking for me?” Mal’ik stepped onto the threshold, filling up the doorway with his bulk.
“It wasn’t important.” Oliver shook his head. It hadn’t been. Oliver hadn’t even been sure what he was going to ask of Mal’ik if he had been there. Please sit with me quietly so I don’t feel so alone?
“I want to come in and sweep the room.” Mal’ik moved forward so that Oliver had to step back and let him in. “I should have done it earlier.”
Bewildered, Oliver shut the door and turned to put his back against it as he watched Mal’ik go through the same ritual he had when Oliver had first arrived. Pulling open cabinets and drawers and peering under furniture. Looking into the vents.
Oliver didn’t have a klah’eel’s smell, and he couldn’t claim to know Mal’ik well enough to know his mannerisms, but something about the tense set of his shoulders and jaw—and the fact that he’d barged into Oliver’s room in the middle of the night—itched at him.
“Is something wrong?” Oliver asked again.
“No.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Mal’ik closed the closet in the study and walked back across the foyer to stand in front of Oliver. He looked down at him seriously, and Oliver shifted under his gaze.
“Nothing is wrong, Oliver,” he said, and Oliver felt a flicker of relief to hear him say his name again. “I’m just here to keep it that way.”
He walked into the bedroom, and Oliver followed him. Oliver leaned against the doorjamb and watched Mal’ik sweep the room thoroughly and steadily.
Oliver bit his lip. “Where were you this evening?” he asked. He knew he didn’t have a right to, but Mal’ik being in here made him feel like he did. “When I was looking for you.”
Mal’ik paused with Oliver’s wardrobe open. That pause made Oliver’s stomach drop out, and he crossed his arms over his chest. He was just opening his mouth to ask again in a different tone when Mal’ik replied.
“Serihk’s ship.”
Oliver winced and pulled his crossed arms tighter into his chest. Why was that so upsetting to him? What did it matter that Mal’ik had friends or that those friends might be the same people that had just gutted him a few hours ago, opposed him, and wanted to stomp all over everything he was so desperately working for? Mal’ik wasn’t his teammate, and this wasn’t a betrayal.
Mal’ik closed the wardrobe doors and turned back around to face him. But Oliver couldn’t see his expression; he was too busy staring at one of the walls. The same wall Mal’ik had pressed him up against last night, actually. He flushed and diverted his attention to a different wall.
“It was cruel of him to bring up what he did.” Mal’ik walked across the room and stood in front of Oliver, close enough to touch but not reaching out.
Oliver bristled. So that’s what this was about. “It was strategy.”
He narrowed his eyes at Mal’ik. So he knew then, about those hours, that day Oliver spent nearly drowning in mud and offal. Panic rose in his chest as he thought about it, and he shoved it back down.
“Are you alright?” Mal’ik tilted his head but didn’t reach for him, and it was a good thing, or Oliver might have lashed out.
Instead, he just stepped back. “I’m fine,” he snapped. “I don’t need you here checking to see if I’ve devolved into a gibbering mess because someone said something mean to me.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Well, whatever you’re doing, are you done yet?” Oliver jerked his head toward the door to his quarters. “I’d like to get back to bed.”
Mal’ik nodded slowly. “I’m done. Good night, Oliver.”
